Court told of messiah fixation

asbestos, as is common in buildings of a similar age,” Mr Nankervis said.

“We get a regular report on the condition of the roof and walls from an external occupational hygienist, who recently conducted an inspection.”

He said the occupational hygienist had confirmed the asbestos was still “bonded” and did not pose a threat to the community in its current form.

“The hall is getting regularly assessed by the technical expert who specialises in asbestos monitoring and we are guided by this advice,” Mr Nankervis said. MELBOURNE murder- accused driver Dimitrious Gargasoulas told a psychiatrist he wanted to injure at least one person during the Bourke St rampage to stop police getting in the way of him contacting Aboriginal royalty.

The 28-year-old is facing an investigation hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court to determine if he is fit to stand trial over the 2017 rampage that killed six people, including two children.

Consultant psychiatrist Lester Walton yesterday said Mr Gargasoulas was schizophrenic and delusional.

“He has cosmological, Aboriginal and religious beliefs that he is the messiah and it’s all mixed up together,” he told the jury.

Dr Walton said Mr Gargasoulas believes “he is the second coming of Christ”. “He has said straightforwardly to me that he is the messiah.”

The psychiatrist added Mr Gargasoulas had a “chain of irrational logic” about what he was doing during the mall rampage on January 20, 2017.

“He was being pursued by police and he wanted to get rid of them in order to be free to pursue the promulgation of these ideas (that he is the messiah),” Dr Walton said.

Mr Gargasoulas told Dr Walton that he tried to tell the public about what he needed to do while driving around in circles near Federation Square before he headed to Bourke St.

“He was actually yelling out things and that was his attempt to start the process of informing the public . . . about this important cataclysm that was about to happen,” Dr Walton said.

The psychiatrist said Mr Gargasoulas believed injuring someone on Bourke St would stop police from following him and he would be free to “contact Aboriginal royalty”.

“Now, I’m not going to put that forward at this stage as a comprehensive explanation, but that’s one theme that’s emerged,” the psychiatrist said.

Mr Gargasoulas, 28, faces six counts of murder and 28 charges of attempted murder over the rampage, as well as other unrelated charges.